The debate below on the utility of religion made me question what exactly people meant by “religion.” This is more than a semantic question, history and anthropology abound with cross-cultural confusions despite common humanity. Below I have cut & pasted a poll question that asks readers to prioritize which theory of religion they find most plausible (or if they find some/all or none plausible). I have also added some elaboration on what I mean for each category.
Caveat: I know very well that the various divisions merge into one another and are often nested within lower levels. But for the purposes of communication I’ve tried to tease them apart.
Functionalism: This is the general “good of the society” or “social glue” theory. Group selection and “mob control” theories (espoused by Jared Diamond) are likely subsumed under this heading. Functionalism tends to emphasize the social scale, and so mass organized religions get all the play on this level.
Mental byproduct: Championed by many cognitive scientists who adhere to the modular mind, religion-as-a-mental-byproduct tends to assert that spiritual feelings on the individual scale emerge from complex interactions between atomic modular units forged during the EEA. Religion is not necessarily adaptive and might even be maladaptive, but nevertheless the benefits of the individual modular units is high enough to compensate for the cost of religious needs and compulsions. This tends to emphasize the individual scale and does not differentiate between various theologies and mass religious organizations.
Proto-science: In this scenario religion is a way for the “primitive” mind to explain the world around them, that is, make predictions by formulating general theories of cause & effect. It is often related to magic and other direct manifestations of the supernatural in the corporeal realm. The idea that religion is proto-science can be conceived of as both on the individual and social level.
Direct adaptation: This posits that religion is a direct adaptation which has benefits in and of itself, usually on the individual level. For example, perhaps religion mitigates the fear of death and so blocks excessive morbid preoccuptations that might draw time away from procreation and status acqusition. This is a flexible approach, and can be fitted into “rational choice” theories that posit religions as baskets of goods and services. It can be stretched from the EEA to the modern world. Additionally, it might fit well with “God Module” theories which tend to finger one primary cause of religion feeling within the brain.
Emotional succor: This is an individual level theory which is related to the mental byproduct model in that religion emerges out of complex cognitive processes. Additionally the emotional succor argument ties in somewhat to direct adaptation as it might just be a proximate phenomenon. It also is proximate in relation to the functionalist paradigm as emotional succor is the glue that binds the society.
Religion is true: Needs no elaboration.
Religion is a meme: This is a theory that posits that religion is a “mental virus” that is a replicator that propogates selfishly. Obviously this theory is less appropriate in the EEA, but rather, like the functionalist model, tends to work better in “modern” societies with mass religions.
I’ve only touched on the topic in the most clumsy of fashions, but I wanted to get this out there before the previous thread died. Personally, I think all points of view have merit, the issue is to nest the model with the appropriate hierarchy of social organization. That is, functionalism doesn’t do too well on the scale of the individual, while religion as a mental byproduct doesn’t explain the cultural diversity of mass movements. The levels of organization are important, even if mass religious movements decline, other levels of religiosity, nested within smaller social units (individuals or families) might persist. If some charismatic individuals tend to trigger religious revolutions because of their fanaticism being derived from a hyper-active “God Module,” genetic engineering that deletes the “God Module” might result in the removal of mystics and prophets from the scene, but common-place religiosity might still remain. If science explains the totality of the physical universe, religion still remains as an abstract system of ethics, functional social units and an avenue for emotional succor.
I think that individual perspective matters a lot on how we view this issue. Intelligent non-religious people in my experience tend to emphasize functionalism, religion as proto-science and memes. Proto-science and memes are all about ideas and information, something that the hyper-intelligent can understand. More typical emotional needs might be more difficult for some individuals to grasp. Similarly, if they lack the proper conformation of cognitive domains that results in an emergence of religious feeling, they won’t be able to intuitively understand the appeal of religion.Finally, when I say that perhaps Islam should be “gelded,” I am clearly talking about functionalism, and to a lesser extent proto-science. Religion as an individual phenomenon seems to be pretty difficult to diminish in many people, but the reality of human history shows that powerful, rigid and temporally ambitious mass social organizations grounded in Godly principles can be dangerous. Additionally, history and anthropology seem to indicate they are not natural, that is, they emerge out of our societies because of sociological and historical variables, not evolutionary ones. I have talked before how in some ways how the modern West resembles the EEA more than the baroque traditional agricultural civilizations of Eurasia. In the United States today religion is a strong driver of civil society and is organizationally healthy, yet individuals remain in the driver’s seat, and there is a healthy pluralism that blunts the tendency of religious officials to bull their way into the temporal arena. Instead, they tend to provide goods & services to satisfy the private needs of their congregants, with political activites being secondary in importance, though not always trivial….
| What is religion good for? | |
| Functionalism (religion serves as “social glue”) | |
| Mental byproduct (religion emerges out of the interplay between specialized cognitive domains) | |
| Proto-science (religion explains the world) | |
| Direct adaptation (religion is a specialized adaptation) | |
| Emotional succor (religion is an “opium of the masses”) | |
| Religion(s) is true | |
| All or some of the above | |
| None of the above | |
| Free polls from Pollhost.com | |
Posted by razib at 12:50 AM